The road to leaked video of Trump showing off his ability to molest women

A television program was forced to race to air a video of Mr. Trump bragging about seducing and molesting women after learning that another newspaper also had the material.

US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Photo: Yahoo News

A video, about 3 minutes long, is causing a stir in the race to the White House, in which Republican US presidential candidate Donald Trump brags about his vulgar actions with women, according to CNN.

The above video, forgotten in the archives of NBC's Access Hollywood program, which specializes in discussing celebrity gossip and behind-the-scenes stories, was only revealed a few days ago.

According to an NBC source, on October 3, one of the producers of the show Access Hollywood suddenly remembered the 2005 recording of a conversation between Mr. Trump and host Billy Bush. The conversation took place when the two were riding a bus to meet actress Arianne Zucker to attend another TV show produced by NBC called Days of Our Lives.

The video comes amid ongoing controversy over Trump's offensive remarks about former Miss Universe Alicia Machado. The Associated Press has also been causing a stir by publishing a story quoting former employees of the show "The Apprentice" who have criticized the American billionaire for his "vulgar and sexist" behavior during their time together. Trump is the host of the show.

Caught up in the current news cycle focusing on Trump's contempt for women, last week, Rob Silverstein, executive producer of Access Hollywood, and his team dug up previously aired episodes and discovered a special video. In it, Trump tells host Billy Bush how he flirts with and seduces women: "And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything... You can touch their private parts. You can do anything."

Also in the video, Trump revealed that he tried to seduce a woman into bed but failed.

"I tried to seduce her and I failed. I admit it... I seduced her fiercely. I took her shopping. She wanted some furniture... I attacked her like a wolf but I failed."

Natalie Morales, the current co-host of Access Hollywood, identified the girl Trump was referring to as Nancy O'Dell, who co-hosted Access Hollywood with Bush at the time.

Nancy O'Dell, now the host of Entertainment Tonight, declined to comment. Brad Bessey, executive producer of Entertainment Tonight, wrote on Twitter that O'Dell was "a brilliant journalist, beautiful, family-oriented, and smart."

The video of Trump talking to host Bush, lasting about three minutes, was recorded a few months after he married his third wife, Melania.

An NBC source said that after reviewing the video, they "debated what to do with it."

By the morning of October 7, Silverstein had decided to air the video with captions. However, Silverstein did not plan to air the video on Access Hollywood that evening. This meant he could have released it no earlier than the evening of October 10, immediately after the second live presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

An NBC source confirmed that Access Hollywood was working on a story about the Trump video, but that it had not been completed by the morning of October 7. That was when Silverstein received a notification that Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold had obtained the video.

For months, Fahrenthold has been dogged by scandals surrounding Trump's charitable donations and the Trump Foundation. It appears someone leaked the video to Fahrenthold.

Around noon on October 7, Fahrenthold called NBC to ask for comment on the video. Producers of the California-based show Access Hollywood were surprised by Fahrenthold's call.

When contacted by CNN on October 7 to find out the origin of the video, Farenthold declined to comment.

But NBC sources believe someone working for NBC downloaded the video from one of the network's servers, which was only accessible internally when Access Hollywood planned to air the story about Trump discussing groping women.

After Farenthold called, the NBC team and the program Access Hollywood quickly completed the work related to the video. Access Hollywood aired the story on the evening of October 7 with the narration of host Natalie Morales.

According to VNE